1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to dispensing precut lengths of straight steel rods received from coils of the rod and, in particular, to dispensing straight lengths of reinforcing steel used in the construction industry.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
The reinforcing steel rods (re-bar) employed in this country have typically been formed and shipped from the steel mills in straight lengths approximately 60 feet in length. These straight lengths are processed in standard cutting machines to prepare predetermined lengths suitable for their intended constructional use, often resulting in waste of the cut off ends. The practice in European countries, because of the limitation of their streets and high-ways, has been to produce the re-bar in coils approximately 4 to 5 feet in diameter and weighing approximately 1/2 to 1 ton. The re-bar is wound on spindles at the steel mill as the rods are processed and slowly cooled on the spindle, resulting in a variable annealing of the rod, dependent upon its position in the coil of steel.
A number of elaborate machines have been devised for receiving the coils of re-bar and processing the rod into straight lengths of predetermined sizes. Typically, the processing has used sets of opposed rollers which are all independently adjustable and which are employed in a stepwise fashion to progressively straighten the rod as it is passed through the machine. The controls on the pinch rollers and the operation of the machines follows an art requiring a high degree of skill and patience by the operator and requiring constant adjustment as the coil is processed to compensate for the differently annealed portions of the steel. Typically, the best machines presently can process the re-bar at quite low speeds.